Hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Panel II - Report on Performance Enhancing Substances in Major League Baseball

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REP. JOHN SARBANES (D-MD): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding the hearing.

You all have been very patient. You'll be glad to know you're getting towards the end here.

I'm highly sensitized to this issue recently for a couple of reasons. One is, I, a few weeks back, introduced legislation that would create a foundation to support the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Education, which I hope will take the lead with others in a campaign nationally that we have to undertake to combat the use of steroids.

But in the process, I've been visiting a lot of youth sports programs and so forth around my district over the last few weeks just to promote the mission of the President's Council and have seen first- hand, obviously, the impact that professional athletes have; I mean, the posters that are on the walls, the comments of the kids. And so the effect that that modeling has on them is, I think, obvious to all of us.

The other thing is a little thing. It happened yesterday. My 14-year-old son loves baseball. He wants to play baseball. He's been playing it. So I thought I'd help him get in shape for the baseball season that's coming up. I went out and bought him one of these push- up things. There's a piece of equipment. There's a tape that comes with it.

So last night we went down to watch the tape. It seemed innocent enough. But at the end of it, the person on the videotape said, "So what you need is three things. You need the equipment, you need this instruction booklet on how to make sure your form is good, and then, of course, you need these supplements that you can go buy too."

So that pretty much drove it home. This was last night at 9:00. So I was ready for the hearing just based on that.

There seem to be three categories of athletes that we're talking about. One of those who are not using any performance-enhancing drugs, and it sounds like it requires quite a bit of discipline to resist it. The second group would be those who are doing it and don't care. I mean, they've just decided that it's all about the detection. If they can escape detection, they will. And they'll use these drugs to get competitive advantage.

And then I think there's a group in the middle, which has been described, which are the athletes who say, you know, "I don't want to do this, but if I'm losing out competitively to these other folks who aren't being taken to task, I'm not just going to sit idly by." And so they get pulled into it.

And what I'm curious about is how can we move the culture away from this notion that you don't do it because you don't want to be detected, which leaves you open to the arrival of new, non-detectable drugs to sort of undermine the effort? How can we get to a culture of clean?

I mean, do you have any confidence that the enforcement mechanisms that you've implemented and will agree to implement further going forward can actually lead to that so that those who don't use, and those who don't want to use but are, can take over the game in a positive way and drive that culture? So it's not about whether you're getting detected or not. It's about doing the right thing. I don't want to sound naive about it, but can we get to that point where that's the sort of cultural norm? How much confidence do you have in that?

MR. SELIG: Well, I would say that I have a lot more confidence than I did three years ago. All of our educational programs that go out -- baseball, with the Partnership for a Drug-Free America and the Hooton Foundation and others, has spent an enormous amount of time and money. And we're getting the message across.

Now, with all the internal things we're doing in baseball to change the culture -- and I think the culture has been changed in a lot of ways, maybe even more than we know -- but I would hope that all the things that we've done -- just think all the things in the last week of the Mitchell recommendations about certifying from trainers and checking packages and doing all the things we do; the new department, which I think is going to be very important.

I think today everybody in the sport -- and I'm talking on the field and off the field -- has a much clearer understanding that this culture not only needs to be changed -- is changing, and is changing dramatically. We've just got to keep the pressure on, to be frank with you. Yes, I'm optimistic that we can do that. And, in fact, we have to do it. We have no other choice. This must be done.

MR. FEHR: I guess, for my part, I hope we can. I think we're moving and have made some big strides in that direction. I have no doubt that this or other committees of the Congress will be interested in whether history proves out that we have. And we'll see. Our task is to keep working at it.

But let me address one thing you said which to me is of really enormous importance. You talked about your son seeing a video that said he should take supplements. If any of you haven't done it, please go to the drug store or GNC or somewhere else and look what's up on the shelves. Every tree, every grass, every bush, every mineral, everything else anybody's ever heard of is there.

When I mentioned in my prepared testimony in my opening remarks that one of the things that may bear consideration is a review of the Dietary Supplements Act, DSHEA, to see if it makes sense, so that we don't, in effect, advertise to kids, because, as Senator Mitchell has said, as the commissioner has said, as I've said any number of times, this is a very wide problem.

And I'll just give you one example of it. I'll hand it up to the committee when we're done. This is an ad in Continental Airlines Magazine that we saw coming down here. It says, "Choose Life: Grow Young with HGH, the Reverse Aging Miracle." Okay.

It is one thing to say that athletes should do whatever they can, and we don't question that. But if the messages generally are not consistent with that, especially to kids, we've got a really tough row to hoe. And so I hope that people would consider that.

MR. SELIG: Just to -- you know, the public service announcements that we are doing with the Partnership for a Drug-Free America that shows what it does to people's bodies, that needs to go on at every level. As I said earlier, I've talked to a lot of people in college sports and high school sports and other things, and there is no question. And hopefully, out of all of this, baseball can be a leader in doing exactly what you're asking, and that is to send the right message.

MR. FEHR: If I could just make -- I apologize and ask your indulgence for 30 more seconds. If you go to young people's athletic programs, one of the messages you will see most consistently delivered in any variety of ways will be "You're not big enough, you're not strong enough, you're not fast enough. Do something about it." And the kids want to.

In wrestling, we approach this in different ways. We have things like weight classes. We don't otherwise. If the message is going to be, in the main competitive team sports, that most people are not big enough, strong enough or fast enough, that makes it even more difficult. And I haven't got a clue as to how to attack that. But that's what the coaches want.

REP. SARBANES: Thank you.

My time is up, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it. I would just say that I hope that the public is watching not just as fans of baseball but also does some self-reflection as parents and coaches and thinks about the messages that we're sending and how we can participate in this campaign to turn around steroid use.

Thank you.

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